public domain

Hello everyone,

I live in Missouri and operate a website that collects and brings together all sorts of public domain e-books and charges a small fee for lifetime membership. I recently received a cease and desist letter from another similar site that I had become a member of several years ago. They say that I breached their terms of service agreement and intellectual property rights by reselling their service, but everything that is the same on both of our sites has been public domain for a long time. Can works in the public domain be claimed as part of a business's service, and do I have to comply?

They are claiming you stole their business model and are using it without their permission. It has nothing to do with material offered by you. The question you need to answer is, how much money are you willing to spend to defend yourself in court? If your business is exactly the same, then yes, you should comply.

"They are claiming you stole their business model and are using it without their permission."

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So what. Business models cannot be copyrighted or even patented. If unique, business methods unfortunately may be patented however.

"If your business is exactly the same, then yes, you should comply."

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And that has nothing to do with it.

"I recently received a cease and desist letter from another similar site that I had become a member of several years ago. They say that I breached their terms of service agreement and intellectual property rights by reselling their service,"

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There is your problem. You explicitly agreed not to use in competition, the public domain material they host when you became a member. Someone who downloaded it from your site is not bound by that agreement but you are. It is a contract. If written correctly, they might have you. Also, "unfair competition" might be an issue, but copyright is not the issue. Obtain the same material from another source, or omit that material. BTW they can claim no intellectual property right in public domain matter. (but possibly the collection as a whole) It is illegal to claim that.